


Near Misses

by rosatine



Category: NINE PERCENT (Band), 偶像练习生 | Idol Producer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, different lifetimes AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-27 21:29:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15033701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosatine/pseuds/rosatine
Summary: 8 lifetimes where Xukun and Ziyi pass each other by--and one where they don't.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'mmm back!! after...many months...oops
> 
> anyway this fic will be about certain topics/themes in alphabetical order so this is A for Astronaut!
> 
> Hope you like it <3

_A: Astronaut_

 

“Day 103. Cai Xukun reporting in. Everything normal on the surface of Prodania. No sign of life yet.”

“Day 120. Cai Xukun reporting in. A few dust storms on the surface of Prodania. Might take a few days for vision to clear.”

“Day 132. Cai Xukun reporting. Everything is normal on the surface of Prodania. No sign of life yet.”

Xukun turned off the communicator and leaned back in his seat, breathing out shallowly. Now that he wasn't moving around, the silence was back, silence so loud it was deafening, ringing in his ears. No human contact in fifty days. No sunlight, only the harsh LED lighting in the interior of the space shuttle.

The lights on the control panel flashed red, orange, yellow. In front of him lay the brown, sandy earth of planet Prodania, and beyond that, a vast expanse of black, darkness so hollow it felt like it could swallow him whole, only broken up by tiny pinpricks of light in the distance.

In a fit of sudden hysteria, Xukun slammed his hand down on the communication button again, waiting with bated breath as static crackled through the speaker and then went quiet.

“Is anyone there?”

His voice was too loud in the small cabin. More static fizzled over the communicator, then a familiar voice came online.

“Is there an emergency, pilot?”

He couldn’t breathe, wondered if the ship’s oxygen supply was malfunctioning.

“N-nothing,” he stammered, voice choppy. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I--”

“Sir,” the operator on the other end sounded worried now. “Are you alright?”

“Y-yes. I’m fine. Please, I’m so sorry for calling--”

“Take a deep breath. Are you sitting down? I think you might be having a panic attack.”

Xukun closed his eyes and breathed. Listened to the low timbre of the operator’s voice and tried to steady his heart rate. He wasn’t alone, he reminded himself. There was someone on the other side, someone just out of reach.

The guy was silent as Xukun regained his composure, then he said quietly, “I’m going to turn on video now. Please don’t be startled.”

The screen in front of him flashed and a young man popped into the frame. He seemed about Xukun’s age, his features sharp and angular and eyes wide with worry. Xukun waved weakly at him to show he was okay.

“I’ll stay with you for a while,” the guy said, smiling slightly. “My name’s Wang Ziyi. Nice to meet you.”

\--

After that, it becomes routine for Xukun to chat with Ziyi after he gives him his daily report. He was patient and easy to talk to, and Xukun had been on his own in space for over a hundred days, dammit, he was starving for whatever human interaction he could get.

“Tell me about Earth, Xukun said, leaning back in his pilot’s seat and watching the stars swirl and dance in front of him. He had almost forgotten what day felt like, the simple awe of a cornflower blue sky and its fat, fluffy clouds, the sun shining down with gentle rays, so unlike the fiery red gas giant he had flown past on his way to Prodania.

“It’s autumn,” Ziyi replied indulgently. “The leaves are falling and it’s getting cold. Sweater weather, these days.”

Xukun pictured it, the leaves falling in showers of gold, orange, red, gathering into piles to jump into. The brisk wind on his face, even the chapped lips he’d get when he inevitably forgot to put on his lip balm.

Ziyi was still talking. “Perfect weather for a cup of hot coffee. Stay in bed and watch a movie. God, sorry, I’m making this worse for you. You probably miss it a lot.”

“No, no, it’s alright. Yeah, I miss it, but it’s nice hearing you talk about it.”

He turned to gaze into the empty corridor behind him, the stark whiteness of the walls, the sheer silence. Sound cannot travel in the vacuum of space.

“It’s nice,” Ziyi was saying. “But it’s not like I leave this place much. I practically live here. Anyway, what’s it like up there?”

“Kind of boring actually. Nothing really happens on this planet. And it’s lonely.” _Sometimes I think I’ll go crazy talking to myself,_ he thought.

“Then I’m glad I could keep you company,” Ziyi said softly on the other end of the line. “My shift is ending, but let’s talk again tomorrow.”

\--

Tomorrow. There seemed to be no concept of time here on Prodania, where there was weak sunlight for about three hours, and then darkness for the rest of the cycle.

“I miss my family,” Xukun told Ziyi one day, a random comment after he had given him his daily report. The longing had been niggling at the back of his mind ever since he had landed on this dusty excuse of a planet.

“Tell me about them.”

“My little sister Xuna will be nine in 3 months,” Xukun said. “I hope I get back in time for her birthday. I haven’t seen her in so long.” He remembered her at six years-old, waving goodbye to him at the space station and unaware that it would be their last meeting for a long while. Training to be an astronaut had been a long and arduous process, and trips back home had been few and far between. Each time he saw her, she seemed to have grown another ten centimetres.

“When I first started training as an astronaut, she made me rocket cookies once. They were terrible.”

“She used to have the biggest crush on my friend Zhengting, and she even made me introduce her to him once. He played along, but she eventually got over it.”

“That’s cute,” Ziyi laughed.

“What about you? What’s your family like?”

“I have an older brother myself. He was the only one who supported me when I was going into astrophysics...my parents were really worried I would launch myself into space and they’d never see me again.”

“Well, that’s what I did,” Xukun said ruefully, and Ziyi’s face creased in a laugh onscreen.

“I don’t go home a lot, anyway. Someone has to make sure you guys are alive up there.”

His words seemed to congeal in the silence between them, solidify into a tangible lump in both their throats.

“Do you think it was worth it?”

“What?”

“Chasing a dream, and giving up everything else.” Chasing a dream, only to end up cold and alone in the lifeless vacuum of space, only to realise there was no wonder and grandeur in touching the stars when there was no one to share them with. Knowing--some thousand million kilometres away--his family is waiting for him to come home.

Ziyi hummed, and seemed to glance offscreen at something. Xukun could just barely make out the edge of a photo frame on his desk.

“Who knows. Maybe we’ll have to decide that for ourselves.”

\--

Days like this, when Xukun was done with his duty of staring at space rocks, and Ziyi didn’t have anything important to attend to, they would play twenty questions.

“Favourite movie?”

“...Star Wars?”

“Seriously?” Xukun groaned, swatting at a sheepish Ziyi on his screen, outraged. “Those movies are like, the least accurate depiction of space ever. No one’s going to launch flaming explosions in space, there’s _no oxygen_.”

“It got me interested in space!”

“Of course. Typical.”

“What about you, huh?” Ziyi was looking more and more nonplussed on the screen. “What’s your favourite movie?”

“...Our Times.”

“The high school movie? Where this girl’s in love with the school’s most popular guy like every other high school movie out there?”

“Shut up, it’s good!”

“Of course you like that movie. Of course.”

“What does that mean?!”

“You like cliche high school movies with predictable plots and bad acting.”

“Oh, like you have better taste.”

“Star Wars is a generational classic!”

“No comment. Anyway, favourite food?”

“The dumplings round the corner from my house. I might miss them more than my family.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah! Maybe I can take you some time.”

Xukun started at his casual invitation. It was the first time either of them had acknowledged that the other was more than just a voice and a face behind a screen. He had almost forgotten that there was a world out there where he might reach for Ziyi’s face and not find cold, hard glass. Ziyi in the flesh, Ziyi’s skin gold against the sunset, Ziyi in all his angles and edges, Ziyi, warm, _real_ , in front of him. It was almost overwhelming to think about.

“Sure,” Xukun said. “Let’s go.”

\--

Ziyi promised to greet him personally in the landing area when he returned to the space station in three days. Xukun spent his every waking moment counting down the hours till he could finally feel soil beneath his feet and breathe real air, not to mention meeting his virtual friend.

He felt a rush of great satisfaction in taking off from Prodania on the third day, the shuttle creaking with movement after two hundred days of staying put on dry sand. Xukun set course for the space station in barely contained excitement.

Halfway through his journey, the engine suddenly sputtered and went quiet.

“Magnetic interference,” the system announced in a monotone, and Xukun turned to see a black chasm gaping back at him, darkness so concentrated that it was opaque, sucking in everything in an impossibly wide radius. He watched some rocks float and vanish into the dark depths, and felt his blood turn to ice.

“Emergency, emergency! I’m near a black hole! Ziyi, can you hear me? Ziyi!”

The communicator crackled ominously in response and Xukun rushed for the controls, cranking up the engine power and slamming uselessly on the steering controls. The space shuttle kept moving closer and closer to the black mass behind him, compelled by an invisible magnetic force Xukun had no desire to encounter. The engine sputtered and wheezed and had no effect on the overwhelming pull of the void; the spaceship drifted closer and closer to the black hole, the tip of its tail engulfed by darkness.

“Ziyi!” He screamed. “Ziyi! Can you hear me! I need help! Ziyi!”

Only static greeted him as the shuttle sank deeper into the unknown depths, and Xukun’s vision was plunged into darkness.

\--

When Xukun woke up, his limbs felt like lead, heavy and immovable beside him. His eyelids were probably glued to his eyeballs, with the amount of effort it took to open them. His body was one huge ball of ache, and he wished he could just go back to sleep.

“He’s awake!” Someone cried shrilly, and began shouting for a nurse. The voice hurt his ears.

“Xukun! Xukun! Can you hear me?” Xukun opened his eyes hesitantly, as if underwater; the face he saw was somehow incredibly familiar and yet unrecognisable. The round eyes, the slope of the woman’s nose, so similar to his own…

“Xuna?” He croaked, his throat protesting with the disuse. There was no mistaking it; it was his baby sister in the flesh, but somehow standing in front of him was a greying woman in her sixties. Maybe it was he was slowly suffocating to death in the black hole and he was dreaming of what could have been, the future he could have had--

The digital clock behind her read 20:08 in the evening, and beside the time in bright red analog numbers, the date fourth of November, year 2078.

“What--” Xukun tried valiantly to sit up, hand raising shakily to point at the clock. “It’s 2078. 2078? How--”

“Xukun-ge, please, lie down,” the old woman, his little sister, said, pushing him back down on the bed. “Yes, it’s 2078. We thought you were…dead, but then we detected an abnormality in our atmosphere and picked you up. And you--you look twenty-eight, still.”

“It’s really you, Xuna.” Xukun appraised her in disbelief. He never thought he would see his sister so aged, her cheeks sagging slightly and crow’s feet etched into the corners of her eyes, her hair silvery white in the fluorescent hospital lights. “But--are you working at the space station?”

“Yes,” she looked down, suddenly shy. “I wanted to look for you--or at least experience what you went through. Sixty years and you’re finally here.”

“It’s good to see you,” Xukun grinned with some effort. “I never thought I ever would again.”

“Me neither.”

The black hole, Xukun thought. That foreboding darkness, the vast depths of something unknown. He was forgetting something, someone, someone he wanted to see…

“Ziyi,” he said suddenly. “Cadet Wang Ziyi, from mission control. Where is he?”

Xuna’s face crinkled in confusion. “There’s no Wang Ziyi here. What are you talking about?”

“No, no-- I remember him. He’s here somewhere, I have to find him--”

“Lie down, ge! You’ve been unconscious for god knows how long--”

Xukun got shakily to his feet, made it a couple of steps before crashing spectacularly to the floor, IV drip wrenched violently out of his arm. Xuna quickly helped him up and brought him to lie back on the bed.

“I’ll find him, okay? Please rest now, ge.”

\--

When his sister walked back into the room hours later with a tablet and a strange look on her face, Xukun immediately sat up, ignoring his muscles’ complaints, eager for news.

“I looked up Wang Ziyi in our database,” his sister said slowly. “There is a record of him.”

She hesitated and Xukun urged her to go on with wide eyes. He could see Ziyi’s electronic image on the screen of his spaceship control panel, all smiley eyes and crooked mouth. God, he was about to meet him in real life, he was going to--

“Captain Wang Ziyi,” she read softly. “Passed away in the year 2067. His last mission was the search for the lost spaceship Apollo Nine.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Puffs, cakes and falling in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew this might have been the fastest chapter i've ever written
> 
> without further ado here is B for Bakery! Shout-out to user llubia14 for suggesting "baker" on the last chapter, which gave me this idea! thank you :D
> 
> enjoy!

Xukun woke up to rain.

He sighed as he took in the overcast clouds and the raindrops drumming on his window; rainy days meant slow business. Few people were willing to brave a storm for cake, even if they were hot and fluffy and fresh out of the oven. But business was business, so Xukun got out of bed and into the bathroom. That new part-timer Linong was starting today, and he wanted to be able to show him the ropes. He had seemed like a nice guy when he’d interviewed him, all wide eyes and dimpled smiles, just a kid trying to help his family earn some money even though he was still in high school. Xukun could appreciate that.

When Xukun padded down the staircase separating his upstairs apartment and his bakery, the lights were already on. Zhengting was bustling around the room sliding freshly-made brownies into display cases, chattering away to a nervous-looking Linong behind the cash register and the coffee machine. 

“You should roughly get to know where each kind of pastry is, because customers will ask! You can always ask me or Xukun of course, we’re right behind you in the kitchen. And--oh, morning, Kunkun!” Zhengting paused and greeted him sunnily as Xukun as he stepped into the shop. Leave it to Zhengting to be a morning person, Xukun thought grumpily, returning his greeting with a less-than-energetic wave, walking up to Linong instead.

“First day of work. How does it feel?” Xukun patted Linong on the shoulder. “I’m sure Zhengting’s already told you what to do like the busybody he is. Just take it easy, alright?”

Linong nodded frantically and Xukun disappeared into the kitchen to check on the pastries cooking away in the oven. He and Zhengting had premade a good twenty batches to start the day, and he was happy to see the apple strudels rising nicely and the cakes slowly turning golden brown. 

Satisfied, he wandered back into the main shop to flip the “closed” sign on the front door to “open”.

\--

Their first customer of the day turned out to be a harried-looking man in a suit, escaping the downpour into the shop. He stopped in the entryway, contemplated the small puddle he was slowly creating on the tiled floor, and slipped outside again under the awning to wring out his shirt and pants as much as he could. Bemused, Xukun handed him a towel when he entered again, and he thanked him profusely as he rubbed at his hair and hesitantly took off his drenched blazer.

After Zhengting had set his blazer on a chair next to the oven to dry, the guy ordered a blueberry muffin and a cup of coffee apologetically. “Sorry, I was on my way to work, but I got caught in the rain. Guess I’ll have to wait it out.” He sighed then thanked Linong when he handed him a warm, steaming mug. “Looks like I won’t be making that meeting now.”

Everything about him screamed class; his Armani suit, his Rolex watch, even his carefully enunciated speech. And yet--he was mild-mannered and polite and worried about tracking rainwater into Xukun’s neighbourhood shop front. He was kind of touched, actually.

\--

After their first meeting, Ziyi becomes an enthusiastic regular of Caikes bakery, coming in every weekday before going to work, pulling up a table near the register and happily accepting every new creation Xukun fed him, spending a good half an hour there chatting amicably with Xukun and his workers.

He got to know a few things about Ziyi, in this time. That he worked a few blocks away at Wang Enterprise, was expected to inherit the huge family business, and that he had a huge sweet tooth.

By the end of the month, Ziyi had tried just about everything they had in the bakery. Xukun spent countless nights plotting new recipes, searching up baking ideas, experimenting with new ingredients to make something new for him, all while receiving Zhengting’s knowing suggestions. Last week, he had a made a successful pumpkin puff that Ziyi had praised to the high heavens, and he just really wanted to make him smile like that again.

“I’m going to fatten you up like this,” Xukun commented ruefully as he handed over a slice of raspberry pie the next day.

“It’s okay. I go to the gym,” Ziyi replied easily, already digging into the pie, and Xukun could suddenly only picture him sweaty and panting in a tank top, hard at work on a bench press, and he had to excuse himself into the kitchen, face red. He protested it was the heat from the ovens when Zhengting pointed out his flushed cheeks a few minutes later, and pounded on a mound of dough excessively hard, all while with the knowledge that Zhengting absolutely did not believe him.

“Oh, I like him. Keep him,” Zhengting said as soon as Ziyi had left for the fifth time this week. “Don’t you agree, Linong? Kunkun here needs some love in his life!”

Linong sputtered, and Xukun saved him from taking Zhengting’s inane side by waving them both to work.

“I don’t pay you to sit around and stick your nose in my business. Shoo, both of you.”

\--

It was a late night, and Zhengting and Linong had already headed home for the day. Xukun was closing shop when Ziyi burst into his bakery, clearly upset and incoherent.

“Sorry, I know you’re closing, just--I just--can I stay here for a while? I just left my dad’s party and I don’t want him to find me at my apartment.”

Xukun nodded, caught off guard, and left him to sit quietly in a corner while he swept up the floor and stacked some dirty pans in the sink. Afterwards, he brewed a cup of coffee, added some milk and a stick of cinnamon, and went to set it down beside him, waiting for him to speak first. Ziyi picked up the mug with grateful hands and took a long sip.

“Sorry, my dad holds a lot of ‘social events’, or whatever, and it’s so tiring having to talk to all these snobby people.” He sighed, and smiled wearily. “It’s okay. It’s nothing much. I’m just tired.”

“Okay. Stay here as long as you need, alright? I don’t mind if you sleep over, you know. I live above the bakery.”

“No, I couldn’t possibly--”

“Ziyi-ge!”

They both looked at the new voice as a two boys suddenly entered the shop, both wearing formal evening wear like Ziyi’s, with the same aura of sophistication. The taller of the two, with chestnut brown hair and a sparkly dove brooch pinned to his lapel, came to stand beside Ziyi. 

“Ah, so this is where you were. Don’t worry, I told your father you were staying at my house and not to bother you.”

“Oh, thank you. But really, I couldn’t trouble you to--”

“Hey, are you Xukun?” The boy seemed to have suddenly discovered Xukun sitting beside them in a state of complete bewilderment, his eyes shining with excitement. The other guy, the blond one, also shifted his gaze to Xukun in interest.

“Yes,” Xukun said slowly. “Why?”

“Zhengting talks about you! And Ziyi. Like, the two of you. You and Ziyi. You catch my drift?” The boy winked at him, and Xukun was horrified and desperately hoping Ziyi had not, in fact, caught his drift, because he certainly had, and he did _ not _ like what he was insinuating. “I’m Chengcheng, by the way. This is Justin.”

“How do you know Zhengting?”

“Oh, you know, family friend.” Chengcheng made a face. Xukun remembered Zhengting saying evasively that he wasn’t relying on his family for money for university when applying for his job as assistant baker here, and Xukun had never pressed. He had never talked about his family much. 

“Your dad’s angry at you about the marriage shit,” Justin piped up, a hand on his phone. He looked at Ziyi thoughtfully. “Would you marry my sister?”

“WIth all respect,” Ziyi said. “No.”

“Ah, I knew it. She wouldn’t marry you either, honestly, so no hard feelings. But your dad really wants this arranged marriage thing, he’s asking lots of his friends to introduce their daughters to you.” He paused, looking down at his phone again. “Oh, and your dad just went to Chengcheng’s house. Maybe you should hide out here for a bit.”

Ziyi glanced over at Xukun, and Xukun shrugged. 

\--

After the two boys had left, promising to completely mislead Ziyi’s father about his whereabouts, Xukun brought Ziyi upstairs to his apartment. He was suddenly acutely aware of how simple it was, its drab, cheap interior. Xukun wasn’t a cheapskate, but every middle-class person bought furniture from Ikea sometimes, right? Ziyi was probably used to dripping chandeliers and velvet armchairs, flowers on the dining table in a cut crystal vase.

“I hope you don’t mind it,” Xukun said nervously as he opened the door and the two of them stepped inside. “It’s, uh, I imagine it’s not as nice as your place.”

“No, no, it’s great.” Ziyi was looking around with great interest, picking up a forgotten cookie sheet on the TV table. Xukun was hurriedly trying to clear a mess of paper off the dining couch--all recipes and recipe books and internet-printed know-hows. 

“You can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the couch,” Xukun said matter-of-factly, ignoring the fact that his heart was pounding hard in his chest. Ziyi was in his apartment, metaphorically walking into his life, all the bits and pieces that made up Xukun--the little pots of succulent on the windowsill, the shelf of shitty romance novels and pop music albums, the TV always switched to some brainless variety show Xukun can’t help following. Zhengting and Linong had come up here dozens of times, but this was different, this was  _ Ziyi. _ And Xukun was maybe, probably, half in love with him.

“Oh, it’s alright, I can totally take the couch--”

Before Ziyi could continue protesting, the beaten up space heater in the corner of the living room coughed, sputtered and made a wheezing sound that slowly deteriorated into silence. The temperature seemed to fall immediately, the heat slowly draining out of the room.

After a moment of initial shock, Ziyi said, “Um, want to share the bed?”

\--

Xukun couldn’t sleep.

How on earth he was supposed to just shut his eyes and drift off when Ziyi was right there on the other side of the bed, he didn’t know. He felt like a middle schooler all over again, crushing on the girl next door and unable to say anything about it.

And it was cold too. That was another factor. It was getting late into autumn, and without the heater, it was like sleeping on a block of ice. Xukun closed his eyes and resigned himself to a sleepless night.

Then, Ziyi rolled over, murmuring slightly, and wrapped an arm around Xukun, pulling him into the warm circle of his arms. Xukun wondered desperately if he was awake.

Then Ziyi let out a loud snore, and Xukun relaxed again. Thank god he was the kind of person who could fall asleep even if it was noisy.

\--

When Xukun’s alarm rang at 7am the next morning, he found himself hugging something warm and soft. He snuggled into it sleepily, then startled when he realised it was Ziyi. God, what was he thinking? He slowly extricated his limbs from Ziyi’s body and got out of bed, relieved when he only frowned a little, then continued sleeping, unbothered.

He washed up and went downstairs, only to find Zhengting speaking to a middle-aged man at the counter. He had gotten out the photobook of all their professional catered-for-events cakes, wedding cakes, banquet cakes and the like. The man was examining them with great interest as Zhengting listed the ingredients involved in each cake and suggested customised designs.

The man was somehow incredibly familiar, with a high sloped nose and rather harsh features, stubble dotting the vicinity of his mouth. He looked like--

“Ah, there’s our boss,” Zhengting waved him over, and gestured to the man. “This is Mr Wang, and he’d like to commission a wedding cake from us!”

“Alright.” Xukun was already getting his trusty little notebook and pen out of his back pocket. In hindsight, the alarm bells should have been ringing the moment Zhengting introduced him. “What are the bride and groom’s names?” 

“Li Peiqi and Wang Ziyi,” the man said, and Xukun’s pen clattered to the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you liked the chapter!   
> but also i realised i never explained why there are 9 chapters, it's because i'm doing ABCDEFGHI, with I standing for Idol Producer, which is the final lifetime in which they will be together :)
> 
> anyway, please kudos and comment and tell me what you might want for the letter C! love you guys, and see you next chapter <3
> 
> talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/zhengchenism) !

**Author's Note:**

> im trying to challenge myself to write longer fics so im starting with one thats essentially a lot of short stories in one long fic rip
> 
> anyway, hope you liked it and please leave comments for what B should stand for in the next chapter! you get to decideee :D
> 
> kudos & comments feed my sad writer soul xoxo
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://www.twitter.com/zhengchenism)


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